"Amy transformed my entire approach to writing by making it joyous again. She turned the daunting project of book writing into something I looked forward to. I saw every meeting with her as one step closer to my final manuscript."---Assistant Professor of Anthropology
One-on-one Manuscript Development Coaching
How sessions are structured
I meet with clients weekly or every other week for roughly hour-long sessions over Zoom. Typically, one day before our meeting, the author sends me a rough draft (or a document with notes or free-writing that reflects their thinking about their research that week). And at the end of each session, we articulate several small, specific tasks to be accomplished by the next session. Most people meet with me fore 3 months to a year.. My clients tell me that having that regular deadline for making progress helps tremendously with their productivity. Zoom allows us to not only talk and examine texts together, but also to do publication research together if needed. We take notes on the upshots of our dialogue about the project, but many people also like to record the sessions to review parts of them later. My dogs often come to sessions too!
The Substance of Sessions
My work with my clients usually focuses on 3 things:
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substantive dialogue about how to best convey the research’s argument and evidence
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coaching conversations about improving the writer’s process and productivity
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coaching support for successfully navigating article and book publication
But these foci can be unbundled also, if someone only needs coaching and not developmental editing: Since reading and commenting on drafts is time intensive for me, the cost for coaching alone is lower substantially than the cost of coaching plus developmental editing. Most authors, though, find the whole package most useful.
How Developmental Editing Works: A typical session is driven by a conversation about the substance of work, as I offer questions on rough drafts. Authors may share with me, for instance, a very rough or partial draft of a chapter or an article. For chapters, we likely are discussing how to bring the evidence together to support the overall chapter argument while also considering how this argument works with the other through-lines of the book. For articles, I often discuss with authors a piece somewhat similar to theirs (in topic or methodology) that was recently published in their target journal. Together we de-code what unstated expectations we notice about the construction and presentation of arguments in this journal and apply this understanding to their own draft.
My Coaching Approach: This dialogue about the work then provides energy and focus for aspects of coaching related to the writing process, accountability, and productivity. But some people come for a focus solely on coaching. And those conversations often help writers to have a realistic perspective on what they can do in the time they have, set boundaries with colleagues and families, and nourish their brain’s attentional networks. I’m a big believer in working with the brain you have—not someone else’s “ideal” or the always evasive “supernormal.” So, working around and working with the challenges of ADHD, menopause, and anxiety are common topics of the conversation. In my coaching, I emphasize the essential goal of finding balance and some measure of peace and contentment, as we all are finding ways to make our work actually “work” with who we are and our many commitments as people living in community.
My Background and Perspective as a Reader
Through working with academics in a wide variety of social science and humanistic fields in the last 20 years, I’ve learned much about writing conventions in those disciplines. But I am almost always reading outside my own field of training. My doctoral training was in English, and I’ve published a monograph, a few articles, and a book of poetry on the life of nineteenth-century social reformer, Sarah Grimke, as well as co-edited two collections of essays. Thus, my developmental editing feedback is not based on disciplinary expertise. That is the role of peer readers. What I contribute is expertise about writing itself and rhetorical strategies of argumentation and persuasion for authors who want that kind of engagement.
SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION
If you’d like to schedule a free 20 minute Zoom consultation, please fill out this form, and I’ll be in touch to schedule with you.